House on Werderscher Markt
The Former Reichsbank building is a building in the Berlin district of Mitte , which in the years 1934 to 1940 as an extension of the Reichsbank was built. During its long history of use, it housed the Reichsbank, the GDR Ministry of Finance , the Central Committee of the SED and, since 1999 - supplemented by the new building built from 1997 to 1999 - the Foreign Office .
General
The house on Werderschen Markt was built in the 1930s as an extension of the Reichsbank, which was then on the opposite side of the street, and was connected to it by a passage across the street on the first floor. Measured in terms of the enclosed space, it is the second largest building in Berlin with 550,000 m³ after the former Tempelhof Airport . It lies west of the Spree on the Friedrichswerder , one of the oldest districts of old Berlin ; this part of the city has been home to various state and government institutions since the time of Friedrich Wilhelm I.
The name- giving Werdersche Markt (market on the Werder ) is no longer preserved in its original form. The Friedrichswerder Church is located in the immediate vicinity of the building .
history
Extension of the Reichsbank (1913–1945)
As early as 1913, the Reichsbank management under Rudolf EA Havenstein had acquired various pieces of land on Friedrichswerder for the purpose of building an extension, while the planning of the said extension did not begin until 1932.
In 1931, Reichsbank Building Director Heinrich Wolff made several plans for the extension of the Reichsbank. In view of the importance of the imminent building project, the Reichsbank Directorate decided in 1933 to hold an invited competition . Among the participants were well-known architects from all over Germany, including representatives of modernism such as Walter Gropius , Otto Haesler , Mies van der Rohe , and Hans Poelzig as well as conservatives such as German Bestelmeyer , Wilhelm Kreis and Heinrich Tessenow as well as NSDAP activists such as Kurt Frick and Pinno & Reason . Adolf Hitler personally decided that Wolff's plans should be carried out.
In 1934 Hitler laid the foundation stone with 6,000 guests, including Nazi politicians Joseph Goebbels , Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick . After six years of construction, the building was completed in 1940 and handed over to the Reichsbank under Reichsbank President Walther Funk , who saw the Reichsbank's main task primarily as the financing of the Second World War .
The building, completed at the turn of the year 1939/1940, contained three ticket halls on the ground floor, offices and administration rooms on the upper floors and vaults and security wings on the three basement floors . The offices of the board of directors remained in the previous Reichsbank building on the other side of Kurstrasse; it was planned that they should later move to another new building, the north block , which was never built.
From city office to house of parliamentarians (1945–1990)
Although it was badly affected by war damage, thanks to the robust construction of the building, large parts of the building structure were preserved, so that shortly after the war the Berliner Stadtkontor - an office set up by the Allies that took over banking functions - was able to move into rooms in the former extension of the Reichsbank . The Berliner Stadtkontor granted loans and ensured the flow of money between the Soviet zone, Berlin and the western zones. In 1949, however, it had to leave the building, as the GDR Ministry of Finance claimed a large part of the building in its place .
Central Committee of the SED (1959–1990)
In 1959, the Central Committee (ZK) of the SED moved in and began major renovations. For example, the former cash rooms from the Reichsbank era, which had been preserved until now, have been converted into festival and congress halls. On the upper floors, work rooms were created for the staff of the Central Committee, and in the center of the window front the work of the first secretary (later: general secretary) was set up.
Due to the prominent position of the Central Committee in power, the house on Werderscher Markt was the center of political power in the GDR between 1959 and 1990.
House of Parliamentarians (1990)
After the political turning point in the GDR in 1989 , the People's Chamber could be freely elected for the first time in March 1990 . It constituted itself on April 5th in the Palace of the Republic . Because there were no work or conference rooms in the palace for members of parliament, the People's Chamber took over large parts of the house on Werderschen Markt, which was now called the House of Parliamentarians , for this purpose .
After the Palace of the Republic was closed due to asbestos pollution on September 19, 1990, the People's Chamber met in the large assembly room of the House of Parliamentarians. On September 20, 1990, it passed the " Act on the Treaty between the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany on the establishment of German unity " and on August 23, 1990, the GDR acceded to the scope of the Basic Law .
Foreign Office (since 1999)
Since 1999, the building on Werderschen Markt and the new ministry building (built from 1997 to 1999 by Thomas Müller Ivan Reimann Architects), which are connected via a courtyard, have been the headquarters of the Foreign Office .
The ministerial office is now located on the second floor of the house on Werderschen Markt. The rooms of the Ministry's Political Archives are located in the lower floors . The general planner for the renovation work was Hans Kollhoff . The aim of the renovation was, on the one hand, not to whitewash the history and to leave elements from the building's past visible, but on the other hand, to set new accents. This happened among other things through large-scale works by the artist Gerhard Merz .
Home owners
| property | Surname | time |
|---|---|---|
| President of the Reichsbank | Rudolf EA Havenstein | 1913-1923 |
| President of the Reichsbank | Hjalmar shaft | 1923-1930 |
| President of the Reichsbank | Hans Luther | 1930-1933 |
| President of the Reichsbank | Hjalmar shaft | 1933-1939 |
| President of the Reichsbank | Walther Funk | 1939-1945 |
| Minister of Finance of the GDR | Hans Loch | 1949-1955 |
| Minister of Finance of the GDR | Willy hull | 1955-1959 |
| General Secretary / First Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED | Walter Ulbricht | 1959-1971 |
| First Secretary / General Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED | Erich Honecker | 1971-1989 |
| General Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED | Egon Krenz | 1989-1990 |
| President of the People's Chamber | Sabine Bergmann-Pohl | 1990 |
| Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs | Klaus Kinkel | 1995-1998 |
| Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs | Joschka Fischer | 1998-2005 |
| Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs | Frank-Walter Steinmeier | 2005-2009 |
| Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs | Guido Westerwelle | 2009-2013 |
| Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs | Frank-Walter Steinmeier | 2013-2017 |
| Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs | Sigmar Gabriel | 2017-2018 |
| Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs | Heiko Maas | since 2018 |
View from the log yard to the new and old buildings
Great stairs to the hall of honor
Hall of Honor , in the original design as traffic hall called
Weltsaal (formerly: Kassenhalle I)
Foyer in front of the meeting rooms named after former German foreign ministers (formerly Kassenhalle II)
One of the meeting rooms
Dismantling of the SED symbol on the outermost south-west facade
Old building (left) and new building (right) of the ministry
An underground corridor connects the old with the new building
Central vaults in the former House of Parliamentarians, April 1990
Sources and web links
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
- Brochure (PDF)
- Presentation on the Ministry's website
literature
- Hans Wilderotter (ed.): The house on the Werderschen market . Jovis, Berlin 2000/2002, p. 101 f. ISBN 3-931321-20-7 . review
- On the history of construction and use
- Peter Kroos and Andreas Marx: " The solution to a building problem of downright national importance." The extension of the Reichsbank 1933–1990 . In: Hans Wilderotter (Ed.): The house on the Werderschen market . Jovis, Berlin 2000, pp. 86-152. ISBN 3-931321-20-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus : 420,000 m³, Reichstag : 380,000 m³. Source: Wilderotter, Das Haus am Werderschen Markt , p. 119
- ↑ Theft-proof and fireproof. The huge new building of the Deutsche Reichsbank Berlin . In: Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung , No. 4, 1941, pp. 117/118.
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '50.4 " N , 13 ° 23' 58.8" E